~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ # ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On the cusp between winter and spring, I am sitting here wondering what makes something beautiful. When it snows here in the mountains, leaving a layer of white brightness over everything outside, even the ugly oak leaf hydrangeas, with their spindly arms and crumpled brown leaves, take…
************************* & ************************* Today I’m going to play the role of critic. I play this everyday, alone in my little studio at the Hobbit House, slashing whatever I’ve recently written to shreds in the name of doing better. At one point, I decided to have a little conference with my…
================= ) ( ================= When I was finishing up my degree in Human Development at the University of Houston and working as an intern at The Center for AIDS, The Executive Director of that entity approached me one morning and announced that The Center now had a Facebook page and…
I decided last week I would train my dog Mindy to pick up her toys and put them away in the toy basket. She seemed to think this was unfair as she is not the only one to get them out of the basket. Every day, like some kind of…
“““““““““““““““““““““““““&“““““““““““““““““““““““““ Sometimes I just sit in front of my computer and wonder what I should write about. I signed up for a memoir writing class at OLLI (aka College for Seniors) in the hopes that I might write my life story some day. Currently, I tend to root around in…
============== @============== We Americans seem to love our array of options. Just walk into any grocery store and count the variety of soup cans available every day of the week. We have become immune to our vast wealth in terms of soup. What if one day you were having a…
Every other Friday I drive from my home in West Asheville to the food co-op on Biltmore Avenue downtown. I take the busy road outside my neighborhood and have a neat little trick for getting off at the correct exit, which I learned while riding on the bus. Once, a…
Whenever I get the notion that I need to let go of something, I want to walk a labyrinth to facilitate that action. Western culture, especially in the US is devoted to the getting and keeping of material things. We have been conditioned since early childhood to reap all we…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There’s a day we dread on our calendar. No, it’s not dental appointment day. It’s when my husband and I have to flip our mattress over in what I call The Mattress Maintenance Program. Sleeping well is essential for good health and there are rituals involved to…
=======================@======================= The main reason to have children is so that they can remind you what an old fart you are. Last Christmas I bought my husband a boxed set of DVDs of the TV show Northern Exposure. It took us a year to watch all six seasons. Then we loaned…